Abstract/Description

The British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar in the Iberian Peninsula has been a British possession since 1704 and has been British by treaty since 1713. Spain has attempted to reclaim sovereignty of ‘the Rock’ ever since, culminating in a 16-year blockade from 1969. As the results of a survey show, despite a population whose origins are more evidently Mediterranean than British, the inhabitants have remained fiercely attached to Britain and in the process have created a hybrid identity of ‘British Gibraltarian’ which is more determined by political than ethnic factors, is based on ‘not-Spanish’ identity markers and is not unrelated to three uninterrupted centuries of British jurisdiction.